By Slanted Light

Sorry - major delay in replying... What outweighs the cold (which actually I prefer to heat any time) and the inconvenience (which is no more than if it was rainy, or very windy or very dry) for me is the way it quietens down the world, I think - there's a quietness to snow (I think it physically does muffle sound and echo and so on), which translates as peace in the world instead of the constant noise of engines and electricity and people doing things. And I suppose people tend to stay at home more too, which also muffles those things! At the same time, people all react to snow - sort of focus on it all at once somehow, so that there's more of a sense of community (a bit like there was when there were only a few tv channels, and almost everyone would have watched a particular show the night before, so that everyone had something in common the next day), no matter whether it's people grumping about it, or enjoying it. And then there's the fact that it's fun - kids love it, and it's relatively rare here, so people make an effort to get out in it to play, or to feel a bit of the magic of it themselves...

It was different though, when I lived in Alaska - I still loved the snow, but it was also more everyday... I think there it was more the prettiness factor (even if you lived in town the spruce-coated trees weren't far away), and the fact that it was part of what made winter up there different from everywhere else. Snow meant the aurora borealis would be about, and the temperatures would plummet and let everyone show the rest of the world how cool they were for being able to live and be happy at -20C... *g* And you had psychological permission to hunker down in your cabin and be cosy all winter if you wanted to, and to look forward to the crazy energy of summertime, and there were cabin parties, and Christmas and all the different ways of dealing with deep winter that Alaska has...